The Priestess Vision

...the Tillerman gripped the tiller harder and gave a slight push to port as the great warship crashed through the next bloodstained wave. The sea exploded in an eruption of red mist and spray, a thousand tiny red lights in the moonlight night. Peering through the mists searching for the next huge wave the tillerman paused a moment and blinked.

All of time seemed to have stopped, the ship suspended on the crest of the great wave.

The image in the red mist tore at the tillerman's soul, the high pitched scream of the wind seemed to come from the fear contorted mouth of the priestess whose image slowly penetrated the mind of the tillerman.

All at once remembrance, reason and reality came crashing down, the ship slipped off the crest and the tillerman for this first time knew fear.

The automatic motions learned from a thousand nights at sea took hold as the tillerman guided the great vessel from crest to crest, but his mind was off in a time long past...

"Ar!! what kind of a blind sea dog are ye, that be the third ship ye have hit today!" growled Capitaine as yet more of his precious paint and tar fell into the sea.
The Tillerman moved the helm in the jerky motions of an inexperienced helmsman, "But Capitaine Sir! De landlubbers dey leave de ships in every place and dere be no clear course".
"Never mind, dere it is!" At long last the Britannian coast became visible as the morning mists cleared. The crew blinked in the morning sun each staring in wonder at the brilliant emerald coast, spotted with the color of springtime. A welcome sight after months of fishing.
"Make de course south by west, we shall put in at Trinsic", at this the crewed became quiet, for days the southern sky had been filled with terrible black clouds, "And batten down de hatches, dere'll be tur'lent water ahead".

"Sail!" cried the lookout, "Sail on de starboard bow".
The ship had been on a southwesterly course for several hours. Looming directly ahead was a black wall of storms. A perfect line where day met night. The captain had even commented, which he never did, that it seemed an odd storm.
Capitaine lowered his glass, "Put down yer helm and make yer course west by a point south", the Tillerman pushed the helm to port and the great ship swung until it bore directly for the other vessel which was now visible even from the deck.

As the ship drew closer it was apparent something was amiss, she was obviously damaged yet she was being driven hard, she carried far more sail than was prudent! "She be de Molly Kate Sir, she signals us to flee Si..SAILS! Warships to port Warships to port!". In unison the heads of the crew turned to port, in unison each mouth opened, in unison each breath was stolen away and in unison each eye grew wide. The entire edge of the storm was lined with huge black warships, no not lined, the ships carried the storm itself in their sails, like a great cover being pulled over the sea by a thousand warships. The decks filled with a ghastly crew of liches and zombies.

Capitaine's roar cut through the image, "Bring us abeam of de Molly Kate and match her speed", the crew sprang to the rigging as the Tillerman brought the helm up hard and they wore the ship to meet the Molly Kate. The crew, superstitious to begin with were now on the edge of panic, they piled on the sail and she drove forward with a bone in her teeth.

The Molly Kate looked as if she had sailed out from the depths of hell. No part of her topsides was not damaged or stained with blood. Each sea she took washed streams of blood from her scuppers.
Captain Jack Flint wasted no time and no words as he shouted above sea and ship, "Trinsic has fallen, Minax is on the attack and it is said British has opened a gate to another place, a place called Trammel. The cowardly dog British has fled, the government has fallen. We head to Moonglow to use the gate there to travel to Trammel".
One glance aft was all it took to make so simple a decision, "Den we seem to have no choice, we will retrieve our families and follow to dis gate on de Isle of Moonglow", replied Capitaine, although he knew in his heart it would not be so.
Captain Jack Flint was a hard man but he had known Capitaine since they were boys and his words were ever so slightly softer, "You have been reported many times by those without souls, it is said that no person who has killed another may enter this land, and that in that place no man may harm another".

Nothing more was said, the Molly Kate bore east by north for Moonglow and the Temptress bore north for the northern coast. The crew reasoned that since they were going north and the devil was behind them that their families would still be safe.

As long as one doesn't consider an armada of undead warships with a perpetual storm an event, the trip north was uneventful. The crew recovered their families and boarded transports to the moongate at Moonglow. Soon only the captain remained. They had sailed north, around the great sea wall, and into a secluded bay near the Shrine of Justice. This time however, as the sun rose, the hills were not the brilliant emerald they had known, they were barren, and the sun did not shine upon them, only the bay remained in the sun. They had beached the ship and Capitaine had gone off to locate his wife and son.

The Tillerman had been alone when the huge black warships had poured into the bay, bringing with them darkness and rough waters. They had ignored the moored vessel, thinking it's owner was ashore and therefore not their particular responsibility.

The great ships were gone now and he waited nervously at the base of the cliff. He knew too much time had passed and something must be wrong. His worse fears were confirmed when the captain appeared with only his son in his left arm and his great bow swinging in his right. He was covered with the putrid blood of the undead and has he ran several attacked him mercilessly from behind. A great leap from the cliff gave him a moments lead and in a single fluid motion he placed the child in the prow and with a great shove pushed the ship out in the waves. The Tillerman quickly raised the sails and the great ship began to gather way.

Waist deep in the waves Capitaine summoned his strength and lunged upward to enter the ship as he had done a thousand times before. But this time it was not to be, the time he had purchased was up and as he raised out of the water the weapons of his attackers descended. Within reach of safety Capitaine fell under the onslaught and slipped under the waves.

The great ship, with only the tillerman and the child drifted slowly away from the slaughter, out into the bloodstained sea where endless storms churned the sea into a hellish world of mountainous waves and vast froth filled valleys...

"It is not for de tillerman of a ship to raise de child, dis be woman's work", and with this thought the tillerman set off to see the only woman he knew of, the priestess Nakita. He would leave the child in her care, or so he had thought!

"You contemptible little man!"
He had made the priestess very angry..
"What do you think, you can just dump any child on me simply because I am a woman?" she had this scary look in her eyes, "You think it is woman's work? I should just care for any child that some man comes along with? Especially a child such as this?".
The Tillerman may not have understood women but he understood people well. "But M'Lady, that is why I came to you, because this is not your average child and I knew no other person man or woman with the power to assist." This was not a total lie since he didn't know any other women and still did consider it women's work.
"So now you insult my intelligence with your pitiful attempt at flattery? Why I doubt a scallywag such as yourself even knows any other women!" she sighed "But very well, bring me the child and let us have a look at him, we shall look into his fate and perhaps find at least a name for him".

A Name, of course thought the tillerman, women know these things...

The child stared at her with unwavering black eyes, in the center a small red glint shone like a reflection where none should be and she was drawn to it. As she slipped from the conscious world into this tiny red world her mind protested, but like a long fall she was drawn in...

It was not a light at all, but a thousand tiny red lights in the moonlight night. The sea, as it had since that day so long ago, was red with blood and in a constant tempest.

A great Warship hovered on the crest, and for a moment it appeared the tillerman of the vessel stared right into her eyes, but this was not possible.

The vessels captain stood suspended in time on the quarterdeck. The leather of his armor, faded with years of use to a sort of gray was stained with the blood of many battles. His uncut beard and hair seemed like the red mane of a lion. In his hands was a massive bloody crossbow, as she watched his arms raised and a bolt flew from the bow. The scream of a woman that had been there all along, but unnoticed till now, was cut short, the familiar voice haunted her as she stared into the captains eyes. In the center of the unfeeling black orbs was a large red glint...

As she slipped ever further from the conscious world into this terrible red world in the eye of the pirate her mind protested, but like a long fall she was drawn into the mist.

There again was the great Warship. But now it was descending the wave, gathering speed and force as it plunged into the trough of the wave, where years of turmoil and tempest had created fearsome valleys filled with a thick dark red foam made of sea, salt and blood. The prow of the ship parted the foam in a sort of bizarre silence that seemed to clash with the world around and the violent force of the great Warship.

Her eyes slowly rose from the point where the prow met the foam and a low instinctive fear began to form in her heart...

The priestess had stood motionless throughout but now she recoiled from the child...

Halfway up the shape of the prow changed and became the neck of a massive bloodstained dragon, around the neck was a necklace and she knew to whom it had belonged...

As she flew backwards in the air, her arms and legs scrambling for purchase, she screamed...

The terrible scream of the dead woman returned, she knew the voice and she also recognized at once the shinny black eyes of the fierce dragon, with the terrible red glint...

From the mouth of the priestess came just three words, more a ranting than anything:

"pirate saltfoam breaker"

then in the deepest reaches of the soul, where no sane person may see, a door closed, protection from reality. She lay on the floor, exhausted and in tears.

The Tillerman grabbed the child and fled to the ship. "Well she is de crazy woman indeed but nonetheless Salt FoamBreaker is a good seafarin name, and yer no Pirate are ya little Salty?"

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